This edition of the stacks brings you a rumination on rejection, a link roundup, April releases I have already read and loved, and my April book notebook pages. If you missed these this week, I exposed my obsessive reading life and shared what I learned in March ~ it’s been a busy week!

Just yesterday afternoon I received a pretty big rejection in my professional life ~ something I really wanted and actually thought I had a really good chance at getting, but ultimately didn’t. I’m proud of myself for how I am reacting to this and while it’s a glancing blow to my ego, I’m not letting it make me question my self-worth as I would have done in the past. GROWTH. I’m sharing this because I’m proud of myself for trying at all (it’s SCARY), and I know that so many of us suffer rejections in private, not even letting anyone else know we tried. Putting myself out there in my 40’s is both not as scary, but also way scarier, than earlier in my career ~ it’s interesting to contemplate the differences. Ultimately, I just wanted any of you who have been rejected, or put yourself out there and are terrified, to know that we’re all in this together, and we’ll be okay together. None of us are worth only the value of one thing we didn’t get, I promise.